


The happy Ending or why you should stay BFF with Phoenix

by vilan



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Implied Mpreg, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-10
Updated: 2014-10-10
Packaged: 2018-02-20 15:41:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2434139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vilan/pseuds/vilan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles has a friend called Phoenix.<br/>Phoenix is a mutant.<br/>A very special mutant.</p><p>This story is about Charles and his hopes, or why you should befriend Phoenix even when you might want to strangle her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The happy Ending or why you should stay BFF with Phoenix

  
  
It is dark. My eyes are closed, but my other senses are sharp as ever. My hand reaches hesitantly to the spot next to me, half expecting a coldness that will eventually freeze me to the core.  
  
But then I touch warm skin with my fingers and my numbness ceases. One touch- and I am alive again.   
  
“…Charles?”  
  
A voice still drowsy from sleep calls my name and I can’t help but feel the twitch on my lips, shifting to a smile.   
  
“Yes, Erik?”  
“Did you have nightmares again?”   
“No, it’s nothing,” I reply truthfully, because it is truly nothing except silly me just in thoughts. Erik is clearly not satisfied with this answer, for he shifts his weight to lie closer to me. I can feel his eyes narrowing in thoughtful slits, now wide awake. Erik was never one who slept deep, not then and certainly not in this present.  
  
“…Is it your back?”  
  
At that I just stare at him. It is he, this time, who looks away and I know the reason why. I don’t smile and tell him everything is alright because knowing Erik he will think just the opposite.  
   
Instead I reach for his hand, hold it close to me and kiss his palm and wrist. Erik hisses as my lips touches the branded numbers, something that used to define and degrade him as a mere object.   
  
“I love you,” I whisper. And I mean it.   
  
Erik just looks at me, even in the dark and without using my powers I can read what goes through his mind at that moment.   
  
Dark mistrust and a flicker of hope.  
  
Something that is fragile but also endearing at the same time.   
I want to reach out to kiss him on the mouth, but it is hard to move when you are paraplegic. I would have to put the weight of my torso on elbows and scoot with my arm power; but it’s near 3 a.m. and I am too cozy on my side of bed.   
So I just do what is easier-   
  
I poke Erik with a finger.   
  
It means ‘I love you so much I want to feel your brilliant lips on mine’ or sometimes simply ‘Kiss. Pronto’.   
Either way, Erik understands and I get a quick lip to lip.  
It’s not really sexually arousing, but nevertheless warm and I hum content.   
  
I know of the suspicion that dwells in Erik’s heart, the guilt and the strong feeling that lies on the border of love and hate.   
I know because I felt it too, on a day far from this present and hopefully million years away from this universe.   
On that day I hated Erik because he killed my friends, because he went against everything I believe in and because despite every abominable crime he had committed, I still wanted him.   
Not that I could ever tell anyone about it; I thought I had lost that privilege long time ago.   
  
All I could do was sit on my wheelchair and watch men after men fall and Erik destroying himself. I longed order in chaos, while he wished chaos in order. We were in a war nobody would and could win.   
A war out of obligation, a reminder to each another of their beliefs and standing.  
  
The day he finally fell, Erik came to me. He wanted to rest next to me, and I let him. I ungracefully crawled to bed with him and watched his blood ruining my shirt and pants. It was a mess. When I told him that I would never get the blood stains out of my bed sheets, he made some bad jokes about me being bald and I mocked his deep wrinkles.   
  
Then he said something delusional of wanting to give me metal legs so I could walk, but only in complete reliance upon him. I told him to gently sod off because I didn’t need any more reason to find him attractive, even though he aged really badly.   
  
At that, he said I was an ugly fuck and that he had loved me.   
Then, he died. Just like that.    
  
I didn’t cry. At that point in my life, I simply didn’t find any meaning in crying. I already had lost him years ago and I was used to constantly aching for him because I missed him. So Erik being truly gone didn’t mean much change for me…Except I longed my life to end too.  
   
It was simply too tiring to live in a world without that ridiculous bloodthirsty man.  
  
So I again sat on my wheelchair, smiling and waving at my students, waiting for my death.  
  
That was when I met Phoenix. And became her friend.  
  
  
“Charles. Should I get some painkillers?”  
  
Erik asks while massaging my backside. After the spine surgery, I often get a muscle strained or it just hurts without reason. Erik knows this of course, what he doesn’t know however, is that I am used to this pain for half a century. Well, at least my mind is.  
   
“Backrubs will suffice, my friend. I don’t want you to leave bed…Your body temperature keeps me warm,” I say and give him a firm look just to dare him otherwise. Erik sighs and continues to move his hands. He also has three plum-sized metal balls rubbing circles on my shoulder, just because he can and I like it.  
  
I am lying on my side, eyes closed, utterly satisfied. Erik starts kissing my neck and goes along the line of my spine until he reaches a small dent between the bones, the scar from surgery still visible.   
I feel his breath on my skin and it makes me uncomfortable.   
If I could, I would wriggle my arse cheekily, to distract him. But as it is, the paralysis makes even such simple move very difficult and I am too lazy to give a futile try.   
So I try to console the man with words.  
  
“It was an accident, Erik.”  
  
But of course Erik doesn’t believe in accidents and coincidences.   
  
“It was that bitch’s fault,” he states stubbornly and I could just hit him in the head. I don’t, because I can hear his German accent leaking through his usual flawless English, and that only happens when he is really pissed or insecure.  
  
“It was not Moira’s fault. Stop blaming the wrong person, Erik.”  
“Are you saying I am responsible?” He accuses, irritation and distress evident in his voice, although his real face is carefully hidden behind a frown. I tilt my head and meet his gaze. My hand touches his strong chin and I decide I rather like the rough texture of stubble.   
  
“You are at fault as much as I am,” I say with carefully studied patience. It certainly is not the first time Erik tried to pinpoint someone to hate and hunt down to get revenge.   
It is one of his philosophies at this age, something he follows almost sacredly.   
  
I can’t really condemn him for such vicious thought-process. Erik was raised in the darkest time of the humankind, and he is the type who fights to ensure survival. When someone pushes him, he pushes back only harder and faster. The combination could not be worse; it certainly brought the worst out of Erik.  
  
That was something actually I didn’t fully comprehend the first time we met. The moment I linked my mind with Erik’s I was immediately mesmerized…Love on first sight, you might say.  
   
I had my own issues from childhood and was convinced by my own worldview, so I rejected and denied everything that stood against it. I was arrogant and bullheaded, not to mention in strong belief that I knew everything because I could just read everything inside other people’s minds.  
  
It took me years until I understood that even a telepath and empath had his limits.  
  
I am a human being after all. And every mind works different.  
  
I suspect maybe that’s why Phoenix approached me that night, asking about second chances. Because I understood as a human being, I could make bad choices, choices that led to this future.  
  
Nothing dramatically as Phoenix’s though. Phoenix is the strongest mutant in existence, a wrong move from her could mean the end of the world. Maybe that’s why she used her power to send me back to October 1962. Maybe she hoped to transfer some of her burden on my shoulders, or she was just interested in the choices I would make on the day that influenced everything in the latter part of my life.   
  
At this point of my new past, I am pretty sure I wiped out the future I came from completely.  
  
Although I couldn’t change my life in wheelchair, I could stop Erik from leaving; although I failed to stop Erik killing Sebastian Shaw, I managed just to sigh and say ‘Oh well’ because earnestly there was nothing I could do.  
    
That doesn’t mean Erik didn’t happen; he bloody did exactly what he did last time. Utterly soaked in his blood-rush and anger, he stood up catching the missiles and immediately changing their course in midair. I had again felt Shaw’s death in my head and lacked the necessary power to prevent the missiles from firing. All I could do was throw myself to him, to reason with him, (which didn’t work, of course, I mean it’s Erik), and I couldn’t just tell him he had to stop this for my sake, because at that point of our lives his feeling for me didn’t exceed his devotion for his new found raison d’être.  
   
But the bullet, fired by Moira, led by Erik, gave me the necessary attention. It hurt like hell, even more than I remembered, but nevertheless I clung desperately to Erik. He held me in his arms, panic and frustration flooding in those grey eyes. Last time I remembered I blamed him for this unbearable agony, not with words but with thought. I even didn’t bother to conceal my hatred, I wanted him to hurt, bad. Leave with deep red scars that could never heal.  
  
This time, however, I wasn’t frightened for myself.  
  
“Why are you fighting me, Charles?” Erik asked frustrated, “I want you by my side. We are brothers, you and I. We want the same things.”  
  
I grabbed his hand and squeezed it tight.   
  
“No, my friend, I am afraid we do not…Not right now,” I added when Erik looked betrayed and hurt, and clung to him tighter. I was desperate too, on the verge of passing out, but I had to keep him because I couldn’t stand losing him a second time.  
  
“You say I am naïve- that I only see dreams and illusions I envisioned without the grasp of reality. But what about you, my friend? Are you truly blinded by you hatred that you would leave your own kind behind?”  
“I would never! Don’t you see Charles? I am trying to save us!” Erik shouted in anger, disbelief marring his face. He tried to loosen my grip, but I didn’t let him.   
   
“You already saved us, Erik! All of us! I trust you. The children trust you. But if you leave us now, to start another war, you are turning on us, not them,” I whispered, begging to God that he could still hear my voice, “We are family, Erik. If you don’t trust non-mutants, then don’t. But you owe us to at least give a chance to find a compromise. You owe us, because Erik, the day we took those children to us, they became ours to protect. I don’t care what you think you will achieve by attacking other humans, because you need to man up and take responsibility now and not sometime later, and right now I can’t feel my legs, so I will bloody kill you if you leave now!”  
  
After that, I fainted. That didn’t happen last time, but I assume the stress was too great for my body. I knew Erik couldn’t be easily swayed with words; however, he would never leave family behind. The fact about my numb legs stunned him enough that all the children had time to come running towards us, clinging to Erik and me in fear and panic, therefore ultimately blocking Erik’s departure.  
   
Somehow Erik convinced Azazel to transport all of us to a safe place and then I was rushed into surgery. The wheelchair was not a great shock for me, but the prospect still gloomy. What changed from the first time though, was the spot the bullet hit, but at that time I didn’t think much of it.

I was too much preoccupied to convince Erik to stay (and I sincerely found no shame into using his guilt against him because he did deserve it), to organize the children and Shaw’s old crew under my roof, and trying to find a solution for all of us. The CIA didn’t do us any favor as they tried to kidnap Sean and Alex while doing errands, but since it was Angel who spotted them and Azazel who rescued them, it did do something to bring us mutants together…somewhat.  
I knew Alex especially had a hard time because of his friendship with Darwin, and we talked more than once about his conflicted feelings and animosity. Things like that happened, if you became close to your once thought foe.  
  
During the war, there was one thing I had realized to always be true.   
  
To fight, you need an enemy.   
  
The non-mutants feared us, the mutants feared them. This was how Erik had managed to build up an army in short time, because his logic of black and white was easy to understand. And although I loathed admitting it, Erik’s terror group was a catalyst that enabled the ‘X-men’ to integrate with the human parts of our world. The human army needed men who could stand against other mutants, and we were ready to fight to protect others, even against our own kind.   
  
For me the war was always a question of right or wrong, not mutant or human…But I know that not everybody believes that way, at this era the CIA certainly didn’t.  
  
The more time went by, Erik and I fought harder, ideologies clashing, the only reason he hadn’t already left was because I possessed vast experience of patience and was adamant to find a way together. Walking two split paths was not an option for me.   
  
When I realized Erik had taken Azazel to look around Shaw’s resources and dissolved the dead man’s accounts with Raven’s help, I knew it wouldn’t take long until he finally decided to leave; and that thought terrified me.  
  
“Stay,” I said one night after we shared a bottle of good cognac, “Stay tonight, Erik. I want you by my side, in my bed.”  
  
In retrospect, it must have been the booze talking… I don’t know.   
What I know is that Erik stared at me, his strong jaw clenched, then carried me to bed. He helped me to shed my bathrobe as he freed himself from his clothes; we kissed, we touched and at last he was inside me.   
  
He lifted my useless legs until they hooked on his broad shoulders, I could see his thick cock sliding in and out of me. Even with my paralysis I still got an erection, the heat building underneath my abdomen was breathtaking.   
  
“Don’t pull out!” I whined when I felt his cock twitch only partly buried at my entrance, covered in pre-cum and fluid, “Come inside me, I want to feel you come inside me…”  
    
And with a grunt, Erik came.   
  
The feeling of orgasm spread through my flesh, I hold onto the man tight. It had felt so good. The stretch, the dull pain, the heat.   
  
The last time I ended up in wheelchair I had been diagnosed practically impotent; I had erections sometimes but I could not feel anything. In that body I never dared to sleep with Erik, because I wouldn’t even know if I came without him telling me.  
  
But in this time, I had sex; and I was able to fully enjoy it.  
To the humankind it probably meant nothing, but for me…it meant hope.  
  
I was lying in bed that night, satisfied sticky with sweat and semen, when Erik nuzzled behind my ears.   
  
“This doesn’t mean I will change my mind, Charles,” he said and I just laughed.   
  
“My friend, I love you too.”  
  
He was sending me images kissing me on a cruise ship.   
  
Despite all his flaws and faults, Erik could be quite the romantic.  
  
After that night, we shared one bed; and even on the worst days of fighting he always came back. I was happy and still somewhat scared to get used to this routine.  
  
One morning, Alex and Angel fought. Alex blamed Angel for Darwin’s death, and Angel hated him for it, because she had liked the good-hearted boy too and felt guilty, and she hated feeling guilty...   
  
But before I could roll into the kitchen, Erik stepped in. Alex and Angel were children used to the rougher side of life and Erik was nothing but rough. He always was a born leader, and the power of authority did suit him well. I couldn’t help myself from grinning when I saw the two young mutants mumbling sheepish apologies.   
     
Raven, my darling sister, was another issue I needed to deal with. I lost her once to or with Erik, and I planned to change it this time. I didn’t scold her running around without any clothes; I told her everyday she was beautifully blue.   
She immediately stared at me like I went insane or caught rabies, but then she got used to it. Raven somehow convinced Azazel to stay in our home, and managed to get in the middle of a love triangle between her, Hank, and Azazel.   
As long as they didn’t start punching each other’s brains out, I didn’t see a problem with it. Love interests were a common thing even in my school, and I was used to it although the others in house looked positively green in the tension.   
  
Sean and Riptide had also bonded, experimenting with flying and combination attacks. Things could be better if they’d stopped breaking the windows, but well. One couldn’t wish for everything.  
  
My only worry, one I just couldn’t fathom how to solve, stayed Erik.  
  
Months later, I started to get sick, nauseous all morning, headaches drumming against my skull. After the fifth day of throwing up, Erik dragged me to Hank’s lab and demanded a thorough analysis.   
  
In my fatigue and despair I kind of hoped for a disease, not fatal but still critical, so Erik wouldn’t dare to give me more stress.  
  
As it turned out, it wasn’t a disease. 

  
It was a bloody pregnancy.  
  


I wanted to kick Erik’s balls and go back to the future to strangle Phoenix. Because there was no way in the world that the bloody woman had not known what could happen; she shifted time for God’s sake!  
  
She must have known that a bullet in the right (or wrong?) place could trigger a secondary mutation and build a sac inside me, with functions similar to that of a womb. Hank hypothesized that my extent of injury and my body’s desire to preserve its genes must have resulted in such ‘override of nature’. After all, mutation was mostly dominant, the nature’s course of selection, and longed to be carried into next generation.

Emma Frost was a telepath and had corporal mutation, so why not the same with me?

Telepathy was prominently located in the brain, and to protect this delicate mutation the body would need a stronger shell to shield or simply multiply.

While Emma Frost’s body chose the former, my traitorous body apparently chose the latter; it wanted offspring, sired by another strong mutant.  
  
Like Erik.  
  
“…Can you feel the baby kicking?” he asks, rubbing circles on my belly. Erik had been shocked, for several reasons, but he was a man who could adapt. Now he even managed find joy in it…something I need to work on, still.  
  
“Well, no. But I can sense it, that something is there,” I answer, and Erik’s hand freezes. I can feel his eyes widen.  
  
“It’s already sentient?” He wonders in something akin to shock and awe, and I casually shrug.   
  
“Not exactly, there are no concrete thoughts yet, but more like very vague feelings…Hank said it has more to do with my skills as an empath than a telepath.”  
  
I blabber more about the researches Hank made, but Erik only nods not really listening. He just holds me tight; his possessiveness is like a warm blanket that shields me from harm and hurt. 

When Erik is so near me, I can feel his most inner thoughts. One thing that intrigued me the first time I dipped into Erik’s mind, was how strong yet bleak it laid in front of me. It was not a jaded wasteland, but rather a withered garden maze. It pained me because I could feel its potential, how mysterious yet beautiful it could have been. I felt like a gardener, a man on mission, and wanted see it blossom to its original magnificence.   
Last time, or in the future I lived, Erik and I crushed it. Crushed, ripped and burned it.   
This time however……  
  
“Erik?”  
“Yes?”  
"It’s happy.“  
"...The baby?“  
"Yes.“  
  
The secret garden in Erik’s mind still has green leaves. And it is growing, the green, the love, the hope-  
The happiness.  
  
I came from a future of wasteland, now lying next to the man I love and couldn’t stop to love until the end, his arms holding me and a life is growing inside my belly.  
  
A life that wasn’t there before, but now is, and makes all the difference with its simple being. 

Men will still hate us, We will still fear them, but the hope of another innocence born to this world is still breathtaking. I wish to see Erik’s eyes when he holds our child, I wish to feel his warmth melt the cold, I wish to witness the changes in my future. 

And isn’t that what happiness is all about? The genuine desire for tomorrow? I am no longer afraid what the next day will bring. When I wake up, I am full with expectations, when I lie down to sleep, I close my eyes content and wait for tomorrow. My day consists of happy beginnings and endings that does not fear another start.    
  


“Erik?”  
“…Yes?”   
  
“I am happy, too.”    
  
  
   
            
  



End file.
